Makes a case for students' using a focused, carefully phrased question as the basis for prewriting and writing, as opposed to a thesis sentence which can more easily lead them astray. (TB)

"Inkshedding" grew out of a process of trying to make "freewriting" into something dialogically transactional. The idea was to give writing a social role in a classroom, and thus to create a situation in which the writing was read by real readers, to understand and respond to what was said rather than to evaluate and "help" with the writing. In…

Claims that increasing numbers of reading educators are looking to recent advances in holistic writing assessment to explore new potentials for assessing reading comprehension. Reports on a research project exploring use of freewriting to assess reading comprehension; describes use of written retellings as a tool to support reading; and presents a…

Offers guidelines on helping young children develop into independent writers. Explains what to expect at different stages, such as semiphonetic and phonetic stages, drawing as a prewriting activity, and writing and revising once drawing no longer dictates writing. Offers suggestions for providing an environment that supports the writing process.…

Adult basic education programs could teach writing by incorporating writing across the curriculum to learn as well as to communicate. Since expressive writing is a good way to encourage students to write without intimidating them, a free writing period genuinely could be productive if the teacher assigned a definite subject, such as a topic that…

This paper discusses expressive writing, which can be defined as writing in a conversational and personal way. The paper explains that, in this expressive mode, writers are allowed the freedom to mull over ideas and to highlight certain ideas, even as they write, making it a vehicle for learning. The paper presents discussion on the time (i.e.,…

The Flind Middle Schools Writing Inservice Project grew out of the conviction that improving students' writing was a matter not of increased emphasis on sentence structure, grammar, or form, but rather of a change in the thinking about how writing should be taught. The project grew from a brief conference to a two-year commitment on the part of…